Steven Fales was, at one point in time, essentially perfect. The doting father, the incredible husband, the hard-working performer and an exemplary Mormon. That was until he commenced his battle with his homosexuality, divorced his wife and was excommunicated from the church that his identity and whole life were centred around. Fales quickly found himself battling addiction to drugs, and was working as a high-price rent boy to get by. With time, he managed to turn his life around is currently touring his solo show Confessions of a Mormon Boy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before starting a three week residency at the Charing Cross Theatre in London.
In the midst of his Edinburgh run, Fales found some time to chat with So So Gay about his touring production.
‘I absolutely love Edinburgh, I have never seen such a creative vortex of chaos in my life!’ he laughs. ‘It’s such an adventure, I’m here completely by myself, so I’m basically doing everything, from the shows to promotion. It doesn’t end. I’m having a great time here, though. It really is “sink or swim” at a festival like this. The audiences are loving the show and the reviews that I’ve seen have been great as well.’
On 6 September Fales will commence his London stint. ‘I’m really looking forward to taking the show to London,’ he says. ‘I think it’ll be the “prize”. Based on the off-Broadway run in New York, I’ve found that when I’m performing in a big city the audiences are quite different, they seem to get even more out of the show and take it to another level.
‘I think I’m too fringe for the Fringe at the moment,’ Fales adds. ‘It’s not a stand-up performance, it’s a one man play and I’m delving into some super personal issues. You need to be sure that the audience is with you, and it can be really uncomfortable for them. A lot of the audiences for the Fringe are looking for comedy and freak shows. They just want to escape, which of course is absolutely fine. I imagine in London, where the show won’t be part of any festival, is more a stand-alone thing. People won’t be coming in with those sorts of expectations.’
Steven Fales – Confessions of a Mormon Boy
Confessions of a Mormon Boy ‘delves into the inner workings of Mormonism, the inner workings of the sex industry and the inner workings of Steven Fales’, he says. ‘I’ve been a actor for such a long time, even prior to starting these solo performances. Before coming out I’d done a lot of Shakespeare and musicals, and I had my Masters degree for acting. My life took a sudden and dramatic turn when I came out of the closet and lost everything. I just thought, I really need to write about this. I’d seen lots of one-person plays and I thought it was the perfect medium for telling my story. I did some readings in my apartment in New York, then some workshops and tried it out in Salt Lake City in 2006. It just took off. I’ve written the show essentially as a trilogy, and I’ve completed the last two pieces, Missionary Position and Who’s Your Daddy? in that time as well.’
Fales is honest about the reactions to the ‘controversial’ content he’s included. ‘I’ve had family members disown me, but that was almost to be expected. When I came out of the closet, even before I’d written for anything, I was essentially left for dead. Some family members have warmed to me since then, but what matters most to me is what my children think. My children have to deal with a father who’s very open about his mistakes, but I hope that they’ll learn from that.
‘Let me tell you about some of the most interesting backlash, honestly’, he says as he draws his words out, breathing deeply like he’s about to start his confessions. ‘I’ve had a lot of interesting reactions to my work from other gay Mormons, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Even though the show has been so successful there, the fact is that I’m hitting so close to home that a lot of the gays are hyper critical. The drugs and the over-sexing is really overwhelming and a lot of gay guys find it uncomfortable and really confronting to deal with or watch, even though they totally identify with so much of what I show’.
This series of performances are the first UK based shows for Fales. He recently performed at the Dublin International Theatre Festival and was nominated for the Oscar Wilde Award for Outstanding New Writing. ‘I’m amazed at how the story is landing universally. I have people leaving the theatre saying “this is the best thing I’ve seen at the Fringe”. I greet the audience as they’re leaving the theatre after every show. It really feeds me, after baring my soul for 90 minutes, having the audience shake my hand and hear their stories, particularly with the gay dads. We don’t often get to see from a gay perspective what it’s like to have children. What’s nice is we’re able to communicate, and it’s a reciprocal exchange of energy. The audience have no idea that they’re replenishing me with their own stories and experiences.’
Steven Fales – Confessions of a Mormon Boy
Fales adds that his audiences usually ‘start out gay, but often get straighter and straighter. In the Los Angles run, the gays starting coming through and then the straight press starting hearing about it. I was really touched that after the show I had straight men telling me about how they’d been excommunicated too for a variety of reasons. The show has been described as the universal human search for belonging; it champions the individual, so anyone who’s felt marginalised for who they are, or been an outcast, or been estranged, I think the show really speaks to them.
‘The play ultimately is how I learnt to stop being the victim, and when the audience comes, not only will they experience that on a profound, personal level, but they are going to laugh their asses off’.
Things seem to be looking exciting for Fales. On his return to New York Fales will be performing as part of the Universal Solo Festival, and he is also working on piecing his trilogy together for a series of performances around the US and even potentially the UK. His excitement continues as he begins to describe the memoirs he’s working on and the documentary film as well as the pilot for the Mormon Boy Cooking Show. ‘Mormonism is so big right now in the States, you know with The Book of Mormon playing on Broadway and Mormon presidential candidates [Mitt Romney], there’s a real interest in anything Mormon at the moment’.
Confessions of a Mormon Boy plays at the Charing Cross Theatre ; 5 September – 24 September 201. Tickets range from £12 – £18. Tickets can be purchased at the box office or online via the London Theatre Direct website. The Charing Cross Theatre (formerly the New Players Theatre) is located at The Arches, Villiers Street, London, WC2N 6NG.
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